Neuheisel On QB Reads (Part 3)

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

This is the third part of a video of Coach Rick Neuheisel giving a clinic on how he teaches his QBs to break down coverages. Also see: Part 1: 1-High Safety Defense and Part 2: 2-High Safety Defense

Vertical Reads

Coach Neuheisel discussed how he used a vertical read (high-low or low-high) against a 2-high safety defense that has 5 underneath defenders. In this clip he talks about how he uses a vertical read against a 1-high safety defense in a flood to one side of the field. This is very similar to what Norm Chow was talking about here. You have one deep defender that is ran out of the play by a streak (can be a CB in man or a deep 1/3 defender). That leaves the 2 on 1 with a corner route and a flat route. There are three receivers that are more or less in a vertical plane and the QB just works his way down the sequence. Peek at the streak if the QB likes the "one on one-ness of it", as Neuheisel says, and then throw off the SCIF defender. 

See below for the videos.

Neuheisel discusses vertical reads with the example diagrammed above, and also goes on to talk a little bit about how he has the QB key the LBs to determine man or zone, then flash to the safeties to confirm coverage shell before going to the read. Keep in mind that all this should be done in 2.8 seconds - 5 step drop and one hitch step.

Below a video of some of Neuheisel's "trigger drills" where he has a student come up and play QB while he plays the read defender and determines who should be getting the ball. The big point of emphasis for him in this video is that he forces his QBs to throw 5 to the short option and 2 to the long option to train them not to force the big gain, but to make the correct read based on the defender. More often than not the short defender is going to be the uncovered one in a game situation and that is how he wants to train his QBs. The kid isn't perfect, but he does pretty well working with Rick's concepts based on 30 minutes of instruction, and with a few reps he gets the hang of it.